This infographic just came in from Krisca Te of Open Colleges, based in Sydney, Australia. The data used is from a variety of sources. See bottom right corner for source material.
Wall Street Journal article by Alexandra Alter, “Our E-Books Are Reading Us” is worth reading, sharing, and discussing. http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/06/our_ebooks_are.shtml
As publishers and authors learn more about how readers read, which books they read faster, which lines are highlighted the most by readers… it will change what readers are offered. That is not necessarily a good thing. Think I’ll stay offline book-wise and keep my reading choices a little more to myself. On the bright side, it might help text book publishers learn how to better engage students. My suggestion is to reference good books — such as historical fiction, science fiction, collections of best science articles — throughout a textbook. Serious students will be enriched. Others might just stumble upon some really great reads.
Here’s how Alexander Alter’s article starts…
“It takes the average reader just seven hours to read the final book in Suzanne Collins’s “Hunger Games” trilogy on the Kobo e-reader—about 57 pages an hour. Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have highlighted the same line from the second book in the series: “Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” And on Barnes & Noble’s Nook, the first thing that most readers do upon finishing the first “Hunger Games” book is to download the next one.” more
Here’s a site to study, save and share. A number of Federal agencies are sponsoring a computer consumer protection site called OnGuardOnline. Agencies include the IRS, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of State, FTC, SEC, and the U.S. Commodity Futures. Here is what the site is ABOUT:
OnGuardOnline.gov is a partner in the Stop Think Connect campaign, led by the Department of Homeland Security, and part of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
What are you reading? jigsaw puzzle game
This weekend, relatives and friends who could not attend our nephew’s college graduation were able to view it via webcast. Grandmom and pop were driven to a local coffee shop with wifi to view their grandson’s graduation via iPad. All schools should do this for the people who can’t travel!
What is your daily workout? Do you exercise both your mind and body? Each day, do you step onto a treadmill or climb onto an exercise bike to stay in shape while reading or listening to a good book? This image illustrates my daily visit to the YMCA.
Download a thick page-turner mystery or best seller, start walking (hold on to the treadmill’s siderails or your eReader) and shed pounds while getting your cardio exercise. This is a book lover’s fitness secret. In fact, I bet schools could help fight youth obesity and increase literacy levels with this secret strategy: an hour a day walking with a book. Librarians and coaches could collaborate on how to best use these cool tools: eReaders, eBooks, and treadmills. Notice that one person prefers the printed word while the second image shows an eReader, in this case, an iPad and an iPod.
A variety of gift items are available at the Library Advocate’s DesignClass with this design. See cafepress.com/DesignClass
Here is a handy list of educational iPad uses from teacher librarian Lydia Smith-Davis, M.Ed of Orange Lutheran High School in Davis, CA:
From EdTech Teacher (ETT)
The iPad as…..
Over the past few months, iPads have exploded throughout schools and classrooms. Their flexibility, versatility, and mobility make them a phenomenal learning tool. In webinars and blog posts, we have talked about the iPad as….
- Reader
- Creator
- Student Response System
- Classroom Manager
- Study Tool
- Organizer
- Differentiator
In this section, we take a similar approach as with our Great Tech Tools. In order to help educators integrate iPads effectively, we have compiled a list of apps focused on learning goals consistent with the CRCD framework. While many of these apps have also appeared in our iPads in the Classroom section, this list is driven by specific learning goals that promote critical-thinking, creativity, collaboration, and the creation of student-centric learning environments.
iPad Learning Objectives
- I want my students to record and edit video on the iPad.
- I want my students to record and / or edit audio on the iPad.
- I want my students to read class content on the iPad.
- I want my students to annotate course readings on the iPad
- I want my students to be able to use audio books on the iPad.
- I want my students to use the iPad as a digitial notebook / note-taking device.
- I want my students to use their iPads to create screencasts to share and demonstrate their understanding.
- I want my students to create presentations on the iPad.
- I want my students to create digital stories on the iPad.
- I want my students to be able to study with the iPad.
- I want to use the iPad as a student response system.
- I want my students to create written content on the iPad.
- I want my students to blog on the iPad.
- I want my students to create ePubs / iBooks to read on the iPad.
The history of social media in a timeline format (info graphic) is a useful tool for teacher librarians and others. For many, it is a walk down memory lane. See the full timeline at http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/25854-the-history-of-social-media
Add some education data points:
- 1994 – Net Day, an initiative to wire all schools and classrooms (and school libraries) to the Internet. That is also when it became clear that schools needed to upgrade their electrical system. Computers need to be plugged into electrical outlets. This is also the year that Pacific Bell (now AT&T) started its Education First initiative and team, got CPUC approval to donate three years of ISDN lines for Internet access and interactive videoconferencing to all California schools, libraries and community colleges, and established 12 demonstration sites. Library sites included Pasadena Public Library and Sacramento Public Library.
- 1996 – Telecommunications Act of 1996 included a section on Universal Service that helps schools and public libraries obtain access to state of the art telecom services and equipment at a discounted rate. This became known as “E-Rate”, short for “eduction rate.”
- Summer 2007 – California School Library Association offered its free, online web 2.0 tutorials, School Library Learning 2.0 and Classroom Learning 2.0
Add your own special dates and memories to the timeline!
This slideshow collection “70 Interesting Ways to Use an iPad in the Classroom” is a real “keeper”. Share it with all fellow iPad users. Thanks go to educator Tom Barrett of the United Kingdom — He sure looks like he enjoys his work!
The annual NMC Horizon Report will be released in February 13-15 at the EduCause Conference in Austin, Tx and online. A shortlist of applications, trends and issues is posted on its wiki. This is a good time to review and think about what higher education thinkers are thinking, and to share with K-12 educators so they can better prepare students and themselves. NOTE: The issue of digital literacy is identified as a “key skill in every discipline and profession“, yet training is rare in teacher education and faculty preparation.
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
Cloud Computing
Mobile Apps
Social Reading
Tablet Computing
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
Adaptive Learning Environments
Augmented Reality
Game-Based Learning
Learning Analytics
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
Digital Identity
Gesture-Based Computing
Haptic Interfaces
Internet of Things
Top trends and issues:
- The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators.
- Computers as we know them are in the process of a massive reinvention because we increasingly expect media to be touchable and interactive.
- Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models. [about time!]
- Increasingly, students want to use their own technology for learning.
- Institutions are increasingly exploring technologies that allow teachers and students to better collaborate.
- Lecture capture, podcasting, and cheap personal video recorders increasingly make it much easier to prepare lecture-style content for students to see/hear before coming to class.
- People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to.
- The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized.
- There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning.
- The world of work is increasingly collaborative, driving changes in the way student projects are structured.
- Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag the emergence of new scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching.
- The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology or practices.
- Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession. This challenge, driven by a related trend, appears here because despite the widespread agreement on the importance of digital media literacy, training in the supporting skills and techniques is rare in teacher education and non-existent in the preparation of faculty. As lecturers and professors begin to realize that they are limiting their students by not helping them to develop and use digital media literacy skills across the curriculum, the lack of formal training is being offset through professional development or informal learning, but we are far from seeing digital media literacy as a norm. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking, and thus skills and standards based on tools and platforms have proven to be somewhat ephemeral.
- Dividing learning into fixed units such as credit hours limits innovation across the board.
- Economic pressures and new models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the traditional models of tertiary education.
- Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward in a constructive way with emerging technologies.
- The global drive to increase the number of students participating in undergraduate education is placing pressure across the system.
- Most academics are not using new and compelling technologies for learning and teaching, nor for organizing their own research.
- New modes of scholarship are presenting significant challenges for libraries and university collections, how scholarship is documented, and the business models to support these activities.
- Simply staying organized and current presents a challenge in a world where information, software tools, and devices proliferate at the rate they do today.